An open letter to Luke Smith (and Bungie management)

To whoever can get this letter into his/their hands, please do so.
Dear Luke (and co),
I've heard you love (or loved?) [i]World of Warcraft[/i], Luke. And I'm long term [i]WoW[/i] player/raider/raid leader that used to raid at world first level wayyy back in the day and the only time I've quit that game is for Destiny 1 (until [i]Legion[/i] came out, arguably the best WoW expansion ever, sadly missed [i]Rise of Iron[/i] in D1) and this last September when I heard Destiny 2 was pretty good again (that, and Blizzard followed the best expansion ever with the worst ever that is [i]Battle for Azeroth[/i]). And Destiny 2 WAS pretty good, I missed a lot of content because I only tried Destiny 2 for a week after launch (which we all can agree was disappointing) so I'm still working on catching up with what I missed, at this point the only Seals I'm missing are [i]Shadow, Reckoner, Unbroken, Chronicler,[/i] and [i]Wayfarer[/i] now but they all should be done next season. With 1495 hours invested since the move to Steam, I'm still having fun, but I'm having less fun because there's less to do than in previous seasons, all we have left to do is go back and do stuff we missed otherwise.
Part of me wants to write a pitch-fork wielding letter calling for your demotion or termination, but I'm not going to do that. Instead, I've decided to speak a language you will understand: money. As someone in a business/sales career, I know that at the end of the day Bungie isn't JUST a video game developer, you're a business. And a business' goal is to make money to both pay their employees and to be profitable for ownership/investors. I know your bosses don't come to you in the morning and ask you "[i]How are you going to make Destiny better for players today?[/i]", rather they come to you ask "[i]How are you going to make Bungie maximize our profits with the franchise you're in charge of today?[/i]". Now, I'm sure there a lots of passionate employees at Bungie that might care about putting out a product they're proud of more than they care about the size of their pay cheque (excuse the Canadian spelling), hence why this game has such good art and story (although mostly contained to lore bits - where's the Almighty again?). This letter will hopefully give you a guideline to make your job easier and less stressful.
This community, your player base, loves Destiny, which is why we are so vocal. [b]I love this game but I can only speak for myself but I'm sure many other agree: WE WOULD GLADLY "THROW MONEY AT THE SCREEN" IF YOU GIVE US THE GAME WE AS PLAYERS WANT.[/b] I would love to go on Eververse right now and buy the awesome Season of the Forge ornament sets for my warlock and titan for Silver, but I won't because I am so disappointed with the upcoming changes involved with sunsetting. Why should I give you more of my money when you're implementing something that would ruin the game for me and many others? I'm sure your Eververse income is down on average right now, many people choosing not to spend their money because of their particular quarrel with the state of the game right now and not being able to decide if they're going to quit or not. I don't mind Eververse unlike a lot of people, but I will never buy a ghost shell, ship, or sparrow for real money, those cosmetics don't matter to me and most other people. More armour and weapon ornaments? Maybe add old, now unobtainable shaders up for silver? Let's -blam!-ing go. Give us more of that, you played WoW, you know how important transmog is, we care about the character we play, the armour we wear, the guns we shoot, not the ship we're not actual able to manually fly that is just loading screen filler. You need more money to hire more devs/designers to give us the game we want? Scrap all those uesless shells, ships, and sparrows you're wasting time designing and give us stuff we'll actually buy in droves. Not one of my clients would buy something from me if it had no value to them, no matter how hard I sold them on it. Changes like this would bring value to us, hence we would buy these things from you and now you have a monetized system that works and has very few complaints.
But Eververse isn't important right now, because even if Eververse is pumping out good content to buy, we won't buy it if we're on the edge of quitting the game. You see, this community is in an uproar right now, if you're not already painfully aware. The current state of the game that is Season of the Worthy is extremely lacklustre and proposed future changes are disappointing. The incoming Darkness Dorito ships are pretty exciting and might retain some player-base, sure, but for how long? We asked for transparency, which you gave us recently in the TWABs, so thank you for that (at the very least). You gave us what we asked for, but that was a very easy request to fulfill. Now we're asking for something else, but it's much harder - but trust me when I say, if you go through with it, you will put more money in your management's pockets and probably get yourself a raise too. All you have to do is listen and follow through, or at least try to. We know you and every other Bungie employee are only human, so we can't ask for perfection, but we can ask you to strive for it.
So here are a few points:
[b][i]GAME SIZE:[/i][/b] "Destiny isn't a game that expand infinitely" -some Bungie vid-doc. I don't play Warzone, but all my IRL friends seem to. I was just told yesterday that Warzone is a whopping 180GB. Just checked my Steam folder, in which Destiny is the only game, 90 GB. Don't be afraid to make a big game, don't remove content and butcher the narrative timeline, personally I enjoy having to be there because I'm always there but I also understand not everyone is as hardcore of a Destiny player like me. If a garbage game like CoD (personal opinion) can get away with LITERALLY DOUBLE the hard drive space, don't limit the size of Destiny. "Don't let your dreams be dreams, just do it" -Shia Laboeuf. We can easily go buy a bigger hard drive if we run low on space, whether it's console or PC and they're not that expensive. If you make a game we love, we'll do it, it's not an issue. I have no doubt it's extra dev time and money to remove stuff from the game without bugs happening too, I'm sure.
[b][i]SEASONS:[/i][/b] The seasonal model that Destiny has works and I personally like the season pass with all the one-time earnable things and Luminous Engram farming afterwards, although I know some people ([i]casuals[/i]) don't mainly because they don't have the time to get to level 100 (laughs awkwardly while typing this knowing my season pass level is currently around 450). Content drought seasons like our current one however, do not work, so if you have to have three 120 days seasons instead of four 90 day seasons, do it. If you need more development time to push out GOOD content, take it. We'll pay for good seasons and expansions, if the season(s) is good, your customer retention will be that much better. Happy customers = more customer retention = more new people coming to game = more money spent on expansions/seasons/Eververse.
[b][i]"WATCHABLE" CONTENT:[/i][/b] If you guys want to make new end-game activities that are "watchable," maybe bring in Streamers to help design them, I heard you guys did that before for some content in the past. I'm personally opposed to the whole idea of streaming in general, but that's just me and I know that's technically free advertising for you guys and potentially bring new people into the game, which is a good thing for you and your bottom line. So use them to your advantage!
[b][i]SUNSETTING:[/i] [/b]This has been quoted multiple times lately, but I'm throwing it in too for good measure: "The last thing we wanted was for you to look at your favorite gun or helmet and decide it had become obsolete...The time you have invested in your stuff should be respected." -TWAB 12/04/2014. You say you want us to "play our way", yet you go through an endless cycle of buffs/nerfs. Stop it. We have favourite loadouts, if you force us to stop using them, we're going to resent you and eventually quit the game, balance all guns to be competitive in any activity so we can "play our way" and try something new. Make things hand cannons one shot most red bars again. Make high impact, low RPM weapons do extra bonus precision damage to yellow bars/bosses. Make any gun viable in any activity, in some way, then we can "play our way." After spending somewhere around a combined 24 hours grinding out the Conqueror title, I can say I would love to never have to use an Eirana's Vow loadout ever again. Balance the god damn weapons and get rid of metas, problem solved. I'd love to do Grandmaster viably, bring any loadout my heart desires, as I imagine most others would (imagine a crayon eating titan shredding an anti-barrier Colossus' barrier with Sweet Business yassssss). Or just go through with Sunsetting, pissing off half your player base and have us quit and not give you any more money.
[b][i]LOOT:[/i][/b] We need new loot that works as well as what we're used to, not re-releases of old loot (world drops), or cycling old loot (strikes/crucible). This week's TWAB was almost as bad as last week. We like good perks, we will use good perks, if you nerf good perks we will get mad at you and want to play less and won't spend money on cosmetics. If you want us to see us use less used perks, make those perks better, don't nerf the perks we're comfortable and love. And make good new perks that we'll want to try and love using, so maybe we won't use Outlaw/Kill Clip so much. Or just keep nerfing things we enjoy, pissing off half your player base and have us quit and not give you and more money (yes I copy pasted and edited from previous paragraph).

My sentiment of sunsetting
One huge misconception with sunsetting is so it can make room for new weapons and armor.
The current stuff is staying in the game though, how is it making room for anything?
Just make new gear and let us choose, you know let us "play the way we want"
If the new stuff is interesting we will use it, otherwise they didn't try hard enough.
Dont punish us for your lack of ingenuity. If all of your good designs are from the artists that already left the studio, well maybe it's time for some new talent as well.
Dont try to dictate how I want to play just because it doesn't fall in line with how you want me to play... especially when the motto is play they way you want.
All the gear I spent 6000+ hours on acquiring and perfecting being sunsetted for a mindless objective is going to do nothing more that lower my desire to play.
The sunset of static rolls in favor of random rolls was necessary, this one is not.
Sunsetting of 600 weapons and leaving us with 60 doesn't sound to me that you thought this thing through.
You are buffing slug shotguns but we get to use 1 after sunset.
The changes that were made to Strongholds and swords in general is made irrelevant when you sunset all but 2.
1 LMG to survive the sunset sounds pretty pathetic.
This is your last chance to shine, if the fall expansion doesn't exceed expectations you will lose another very large amount of your player base.
See that iceberg over there? Dont hit it or this ship will sink.

You think a coke addict tells this kind of shit to their dealer? You think they take it to heart? -blam!- no. Junkies take what they can get because they’re hooked and the dealer knows it. Why do you think Bungie is still in business? Because enough addicts keep buying no matter how much shit they have to eat whilst calling it supper.

[b][i]CHAMPIONS:[/i][/b] Honestly, I loved this addition to the game with Shadowkeep, but the weapon mods are the problem. Easy fix suggestion: make the mods universal for types of weapons, with exotics having the ability intrinsic based on it's weapon type. Ex: ANTI-BARRIER mod capable weapon classes: auto rifle, SMG, LMG, OVERLOAD weapon classes: sidearm, pulse rifle, fusion rifle, line rifle, sword, grenade launchers, UNSTOPPABLE mod capable weapon classes: hand cannon, scout rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher. I've got no "Bungie make money" comment here, this is just a quality of life thing. Quality of life = happy customers = well, you know by now.
[b][i]RAIDS:[/i][/b] Most of us came to this game because of the raids. We need more than one per year. Three raids in D2Y1, three raids in D2Y2. We don't care if they're smaller raid lairs, hell, make a one boss raid like Onyxia's Lair in WoW if you have to. Personally I'd love raids to be 8-10 people instead of 6, but this isn't WoW. "Oh wow that trailer for that new Destiny raid looks really sick! IS THAT A NEW FATEBRINGER?! WOW THEY'RE BRINGING VEX MYTHOCLAST BACK!! We should return to Destiny and go buy the Expansion so can do it! We'll bring our other friends who've never played Destiny before" -some guy that quit to his friend that also quit.
[b][i]TRIALS/ANTI-CHEAT:[/i][/b] Infinity Ward took out a ton of cheaters by adding two-factor authentication, I don't imagine this would be too hard of an addition. Also, add a pay wall for Comp and Trials for good measure. And maybe just copy paste the D1 Trials rewards system in too. Trials had the worst showing of population player this last weekend, streamers are getting pissed off and quitting Trials (which is the most "watchable" content in Destiny 2 right now), not a good image for you guys. Bad image = less potential new customers = less profit!
I could ask for more, I could ask for my dream version of Destiny, but I know everything has it's limits. I don't think anything here is unreasonable. Thanks for reading, I hope something positive comes of this letter for both Bungie and our lovely, albeit somewhat toxic community. I want you guys to make more money so we can have a better game, but we have to start somewhere and that's making a game we want to play and bring our friends into.
Cheers,
Reyson

I agree with some of our points, and disagree with others. But just to try to clarify some things:
Regarding the size of the game: it's not the amount of your hard drive the game is taking up. From what I read, they are saying that with so many activities in the game, if they make one change in something, they have to go and test it against every activity in the game- and this becomes way too labor intensive, especially when they want to devote manpower to creating new stuff. Like, oh, we made this new exotic, but does it break menagerie, or does it actually bug out in the reckoning, things like that.
Also, I don't know if you saw, but Cozmo addressed the 2014 quote (finally on reddit), but in a very unsatisfying way. Something about how they as community managers try to word things carefully.....but the game has changed so the old statement is no longer valid. Something like that.

[quote]I've heard you love (or loved?) [i]World of Warcraft[/i], Luke. And I'm long term [i]WoW[/i] player/raider/raid leader that used to raid at world first level wayyy back in the day and the only time I've quit that game is for Destiny 1 (until [i]Legion[/i] came out, arguably the best WoW expansion ever.[/quote]
@Reyson2112
If you're saying unironically, that the best WoW expansion is Legion, then you have a problem. A big problem, in the sense, that you most likely have special needs and you are challenged mentally. I am sorry if that is the case.
The best WoW expansions were TBC and WotLK, when the game was relatively new and still on point. Subsequent expansion packs noobified the game, destroyed the balance both in terms of PvP and PvE.
WoW Legion was terrible at release. PvP Balance was non-existent, PvE was stupid, rewards were waay too random, the concept of the new Legendary items was terrible.
If you were actually good arena player or raider back in TBC or WotLK you would know what I'm talking about.... but you clearly weren't.

While it is possible to send a closed letter to some one, they would not be able to read a closed letter over the internet.
Unless of course the sender asked for an action to be taken in order to open said closed letter.
In which case the letter being [i]closed[/i] is a metaphor.
And so........describing a letter as being [i]open[/i] on this forum hence forth shall be considered a waste of words...and as pointless as this reply.
Goodday.

They are gonna sunset Destiny 2 after they've ruined everyting. Players will leave, the remaining will pursue a mindset that will involve less playing, paying for content and grinding. For example I am not a fool enough to swallow a change like this, knowingly that our weapons and armor will sunset after sometime later, I am not going to grind my loadout again. Imagine this situation: the whole playerbase does this because they will be tired after seeing their favourite guns go, and you have an irreparable mess on your hands, but sure you won't make more money after this if you implement this.
Just to know, I AM NOT GOING TO PURSUE THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER, I am fed up with this idea already, this made me quit at the beginning of this season and the only thing that I came back for is the season pass ornaments for ARMOR because it looks like I will be scammed weapon-ornament wise too! (season passes won't be that worthy too, because most of the content will sunset anyways, people are not gonna buy the pass anymore)

I think the whole size problem is maintaining it not necessarily the harddrive space it takes up.
Warzone might be 180 GB, but theres likely far less for them to actually maintain.
Destiny has hundreds of weapons they have to ensure work, huge (empty) areas that can be broken and so much more.
It's just extra maintenance that they've shown they can barely keep up on (wormgod, telesto, outbreak mission bug, etc).

I agree with almost everything besides buying a new hardrive ..the game is already to big...there are really useless planets such as titan it has no purpose so remove it and replace it with a area that's enjoyable..mars is just as crap I'd be glad if they could get rid of it

Well said. Will Bungie listen? Probably not. But hope is always there. Whatever the reason for Bungies decision to nerf and sunset our gear, whether it be there obsession with balancing (which they suck at) or making more money with reused assets, it’s wrong. They need to stop nerfing and start buffing. Power creep is fake news and only an excuse to get the game back to Luke’s asinine vision for Destiny. D2Y1.

Well done. This post is a rational and simple approach to Destiny. We DO love this game. I’d like to emphasize the size of the game. Seriously, a great idea. Don’t be afraid to go big. Again, nice work. Hopefully it’s doesn’t fall upon deaf ears.

Sadly this type of stuff falls on deaf ears and will be buried in the comments. The do not take anything the players want, only ways fo force a certain play style.
Mi have every seal, and I cannot defend this game anymore. None of the weapons have a must have feeling and with sun setting there is nothing to grind for. They keep recycling the same redundant shit because no one has any good ideas.